


crawl home to her

by renegone



Series: heaven or hell (somewhere in between) [3]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: F/M, Family Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Post-Canon, finally reached the pinnacle of having a hozier song as inspiration, mentions of side character death and grieving, old friends to almost lovers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-18
Updated: 2020-02-18
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:01:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22699075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renegone/pseuds/renegone
Summary: "in the lowland plot i was free — heaven and hell were words to me,"hawkeye and mustang in the years after the promised day.
Relationships: Riza Hawkeye/Roy Mustang
Series: heaven or hell (somewhere in between) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1337575
Comments: 10
Kudos: 52





	crawl home to her

_You’re not yet ready,_ Grumman says, plain as day. 

Roy’s annoyance ticks like a bomb near detonation—and said bomb begins to count down in earnest when the Fuhrer makes a swift move on the board to secure Roy’s queen piece, the deadliest one in his arsenal now removed from the game. By contrast, his king piece stands tall, guardedly bracketed by a knight and rook. 

Three more poorly planned moves and he could very well be handing the game over on a silver platter. 

_I’m well aware that you don’t endorse my plan of starting a campaign,_ Roy says. He watches Grumman seize the weathered, hand-carved queen in his equally weathered hand, picking it up by its head and letting it hang in the air at eye-level for a few moments. 

_The country’s not yet ready,_ Grumman corrects, chuckling as he places the black queen in the row of all the other pieces he’d taken down so far, setting it to the right of a bishop, several pawns, and the other rook. The Fuhrer studies them all like a curator in a gallery, so pleased with himself as though he had been inspecting a vault of rare artifacts. His humour fails when he looks up and sees the scowl settling on Roy’s features:

_You aren’t ready._

A retort hangs on the tip of Roy’s tongue, but he bites it back and ignores the bait that hangs low in front of him. 

Roy is reminded of how he’d felt at twelve years old, long before he’d formally met Grumman and had been under the tutelage of another mentor. He remembers the stinging, familiar whip-crack of insult he felt every time Berthold Hawkeye would berate him for the sloppiness of his alchemy back then, how he was unworthy of learning from a master of such calibre. How on the worst of days, Roy would barrel through the lessons while blinking back tears of frustration, willing himself to do better, the very embodiment of a child so eager to please. How, as soon as he was dismissed for the day, he would race up to his room while often ignoring a small Riza, who would chase him up the stairs and stand behind his door when he’d slam it shut. How he would pen letter after letter—most of which had gone unsent—to his aunt and sisters about his plans to take the next train out of that town and never perform alchemy again. 

The memories, now laughable in the wake of his accomplishments and regrets, evoke a different sort of feeling. Roy knows that he is well beyond that level of boyhood stubbornness and pride, no longer rising to every pang of insult hurtled his way, no longer so eager to prove himself—all born from the actualization of knowing damn well what he is capable of. 

Grumman had always said that he never wanted to be Fuhrer: he was a military man, and always will be ( _And will die as one,_ he’d sworn to Roy countless times). But the role had fallen onto his lap, high as he was on the pecking order of power and most of all, favoured by the people. Ultimately, there seemed to be no better option than to appoint the man who had been loyally bound to the military and country since his youth, a key player in the coup, and a leader with real, incontestable experience. The plan was that Grumman would hold down the fort until Roy himself was prepared to rise to the occasion. 

Four years into his time in office, though, Roy called bullshit—it was apparent that the old man enjoyed his role and the power that came with it, his presidency validating his importance in the twilight years of his career. So Roy chooses the high road, despite the fact that the figurative bomb in him had already exploded into a million deadly fragments and suffocating shrapnel rain, sullying his insides with a blanket of contempt. The General pushes off from the table and motions to leave, knowing fully that if he stayed any longer he would only further push the envelope of the Fuhrer's image of him as a petulant boy. 

Grumman, unfazed, leans back in his chair; it is the same beaten up leather thing that had sat in his old office at the Eastern Command centre, worn in well before he’d become Fuhrer. Roy feels himself being watched through the wire-rimmed glasses, Grumman's calculating gaze wholly palpable despite having his back turned.

 _You’re too eager. Impatient._ _Look, you’ve given up the game, but you can still play._

Roy narrows his eyes but offers no response: they’ve had this conversation dozens of times before, in just about every season of his military career and in various levels of exasperated and seething. There’s something to be said about getting berated for being a sore loser by one’s mentor, the leader of the country—the man he is hellbent on replacing, if only he'd just bend. 

At the silence, Grumman raises a grey eyebrow to match the knowing smile that traipses onto his face. _Why don’t you give it a try?_

Roy turns, a hand still poised on the door. _I’ve already withdrawn from the game._

 _Not the game, General,_ the Fuhrer shakes his head, as though trying and failing to talk sense into a child. _I meant try to live._

This, catches Roy off guard: _What do you mean?_

The Fuhrer clicks his tongue, and whatever remaining traces of amusement vanish from his timeworn face. It’s a stalemate: Roy stands, Grumman sits, and the desk that separates them is no man’s land. They stay like this for a considerable moment, until Roy furrows his brows and shakes his head, completing his withdrawal at last. 

He’s halfway through the threshold when Grumman speaks again: 

_Just live, General. You’ll miss it when you get to the top._

Unsurprisingly, Roy Mustang does not relent. He exerts more time and effort into his projects and missions, all while gritting his teeth and bearing through his role as the right hand to the Fuhrer. Ishval’s restoration is assumed as his team’s top priority, but it proves to be more difficult than the already challenging acquisition of resources and distribution to the people. Reparation is a precarious bridge built above the shark-infested waters of pushback from some figures in the Amestrian government, who insist time and again that their own country must come first—it is also made even more unstable by the wariness that the Ishvalans hold towards their intentions. ( _You want to rebuild us so that you can use us up again?_ An elder had spat at him, back in the proposal stages of the rebuilding efforts. A point of contention on the table had been the demand to simply leave Ishval and its people alone. Roy, for lack of better response, had weakly replied with, _No, we just want to help you._ ) 

The workload doubles, the hours drag on for longer, and at the beginning, it gives him a rush. Meetings, debates, expeditions, consultations, appeals: he thinks to himself that this is what it means to be living—to be alive. Roy likes to be useful and of service, and whatever other words that can be used to describe a repenting man. 

He thinks nothing of Grumman’s words until he gets his first, real day off in months. Riza had also been relieved from duty on that same day, much less to do with fate and more likely due to the upcoming Ishval tour that would have both of them out of the country and working to the bone for weeks on end. 

Roy spots her in a crowd at the market, with Hayate sitting dutifully at her side while she inspects produce at a stall. She smiles at the vendor, an old woman with kind eyes and a tremor in her hand, Riza handing over her money in exchange for a pint of berries. A canvas bag is slung over her shoulder with a loaf of bread sticking out the top; her hair is completely down, bright in the noontime sunlight, and her skirt sways around her ankles in a lazy dance with the breeze. 

In the simplest, most arresting of ways, the sight of her captivates him. 

He wasn’t a market kind of man: Roy had his groceries handpicked and delivered to his door on a weekly basis, which ultimately ceased his need to ever visit such a place. The pickings consisted of the same, staple foods that he surely knew how to cook, never opting for anything too experimental or perhaps running the risk of buying items that would be quick to spoil. In truth, Roy had only wandered into this part of town because his coffee maker had broken and he’d decided to get breakfast at a nearby restaurant, the four walls of his apartment suddenly feeling too small. Riza, however, looks so naturally a part of the scene, strolling through the different stalls and making conversation with the vendors, so picturesquely ordinary among all the other citizens. 

Just as he’s about to make his way to her in greeting, Riza vanishes into the crowd. He can’t deny the deflation in his chest at the realization that he’d lost sight of her, the numb hilarity that on the day they were both completely free from duty, she had just so narrowly slipped away from his periphery. Meanwhile, on the days when work gave them no chance for rest or reprieve, they constantly found themselves colliding. 

Roy finds himself rooted in his spot, as though a single witness to a ghostly apparition.   
  


* * *

It surprises no one that Grumman is re-elected for a second term.

The country had grown comfortable with him, after all: good, reliable Fuhrer President Grumman, under whose leadership did Amestris and its allies rebuild in the years after the Promised Day. 

A gala is arranged to celebrate his renewal, on the evening following his resumption of office, and everyone is expected to be in attendance.

Riza arrives at the function alone, wrapped in a simple evening dress that comfortably conceals the pistol against her thigh. Dress uniform had been an option, however she much preferred to wear a dress of her own style instead of a stiff pencil skirt along with her utilitarian military jacket. The medals had also been forgone, completely rendering her unrecognizable in terms of rank except to those who knew her by face. Instead of ironing her dress uniform and polishing her medals, Riza had spent more time in front of her modest vanity mirror, pinning up her hair and painting her face. Contrary to popular belief, Riza Hawkeye is a woman sensitive to what would be considered as the more frivolous things in life, such as fashion and makeup and hair. It was liberating to be able to choose, to fit, to have an air of normalcy and prettiness delivered through earrings and lip lacquer and hair pins—all of which happened to be such minuscule things that held so much unprecedented power. 

She drives straight past the valet at the cul de sac and parks her own car in the lot where she normally would, when arriving on official business. Riza walks herself to the grand entryway of the Fuhrer’s mansion, happy to have opted for a shorter heel amidst the cobblestone and marble, made slippery by the staff’s incessant polishing and the mist that hung in the air for much of the day. 

Upon entry into the main hall, she spots Roy already in the thick of the party. Riza overhears a short portion of his conversation with a politician from Creta, who laughs heartily at all of his disarming witticisms. He says something or another about the man who’d lost to her in the recent elections; trust Roy Mustang to make a person find good humour in a months long smear campaign. 

They make brief eye contact when he allows for a lull in his conversation, but it is not the kind that beckons, simply functioning as acknowledgement of each other’s presence. She doesn’t want to remove him from his element, shining where he stands as though the gala had been held in his honour. Riza much preferred to slink through the crowds undetected, anyway. Her attendance was not solely for the purpose of dinner and drinks: she also serves as a part of the evening’s security detail. 

She soon finds Havoc and Becca by the refreshments table and stays with them for the first hour of the evening, through the brief litany of toasts and speeches that had the congregation looking up onto the second floor banister where the Fuhrer and his party stood, raising their glasses in triumph. Dinner arrives shortly after they are ushered to their tables, the banquet as elaborate as expected. 

Then came the dancing: first, she watches Havoc spin Becca around to a fast-paced waltz, using the reprieve to eye several potential troublemakers in the crowd and finds none of much concern. Eventually, she gets whisked to the dance floor by one Kain Fuery. Riza, though not averse to dancing, much preferred not to be in the focus of the public eye in such a way, but the newly minted Lieutenant had endearingly insisted. So, she relents—Fuery now stands at the same height as she is in heels, and Riza congratulates him on his promotion as they dance to the tune of a piano ballad. 

Roy wafts by her midway through the song, ever the gentleman with an ambassador from Aerugo as his partner, making polite conversation as he glides them over the marbled floor with grace. The ambassador looks utterly enthralled by him, so much so that she doesn’t realize when Roy looks up to cast Riza a winning smile. It was the sort of dance that invited the switching of partners every so often, and it looks as though Roy had every intention for her to be his next—but he ends up getting swept into the company of another chattering dignitary who appears to adore him as much as the last. Riza watches in muted amusement, willing him to do better at hiding his chagrin when he steps farther away and she stays with a hand on Fuery’s shoulder. 

The song comes to a halt and a smattering of applause rises through the hall, and Riza finds herself in her own company again. She keeps her eyes on a soon to be disorderly, drunken politician at a table to her right, as he starts to spout nonsense and offence with each laborious exaltation, and tips off the regular security personnel about the sighting. She then spots the Fuhrer himself in her periphery. In such occasions, his usual target happens to be Roy, though Riza guesses that the two have already spent quite a bit of the evening alongside each other; even through the dinner, Roy had been seated to the right of Grumman, the arrangement having been a barbed point of conversation for some of the other high ranking generals in the Fuhrer’s cabinet. 

It becomes apparent that the Fuhrer intends to speak to her _,_ and not another person in their surroundings. Riza addresses him first with a courteous nod: _Sir._

A smile stretches across his pale face. _Colonel, I’m glad you could make it. Follow me._

Of course, Riza does: the first thought in her head is that there is something that must be taken care of quietly and that he needs to bring her somewhere less crowded to discuss. While there have been no assassination attempts to speak of quite yet, there had been quite the presence of naysayers and raucous opposition at the rallies towards the end of his campaign, followed by a brief encounter with a proponent of the opposition who had thrown a rock one of the presidential vehicles, nearly shattering the window of the Fuhrer's driver. 

Instinctively, Riza makes to turn the corner for the stairwell shortcut that leads to the Fuhrer’s office, but Grumman continues to walk straight ahead through the hall, pausing briefly for her to get back in step. Eventually, he leads them to a more private gathering area at the entrance of the mansion’s north wing, where an ample collection of people stood and circulated among each other. They do not seem to conduct themselves with the same buoyant socialization of those present in the main gala, but rather rubbed shoulders unhurriedly, the atmosphere laden with sureness and grace. A quick scan of the room reveals that there are no familiar faces in attendance, not even Roy, who she presumes is still alluring the masses in the main hall. 

Grumman pauses at the collection of aptly groomed and impressively decorated individuals, all looking to be in the same cohort. Some younger, some older, though they all share the same air of opulence—men with fat cigars and medals lined on their coats, and women with jewels glimmering on their necks and hands. The chatter dies when Grumman clears his throat, smiles, and announces: 

_This is my granddaughter, Riza._

It feels like a gunshot, never mind that he’d said it with the warmest of tones, as though it was a fact never to be contested. 

Riza's head is spinning, reeling from being blindsided, but she smiles and shakes their hands anyway. Nameless, high ranking dignitaries from Aerugo, Creta, Xing; their eyes are prying, inquisitive, and the lines on their faces dig deeper to accommodate for polite smiles and planting unwarranted kisses on her cheeks. 

She excuses herself from the situation with expertise after Grumman recounts the story of just how proud he’d been when Riza graduated from cadet school with honours, the heartbeat in her ears too loud all of a sudden. He had in fact, been in attendance, but only as a benefactor of the academy and a presenter of several illustrious awards that Riza did not receive—he had not been a beaming, upstanding grandfather by any means. The constriction in her chest is stubborn as she walks away from the group in measured steps, and it betrays her by making her eyes sting and water when she’d rather be fuming and spouting vitriol. Colonel Riza Hawkeye is a woman whose virtue is composure under fire, and she finds herself tested by the snarling inside her chest, a granddaughter sized wound square between her ribs. 

Roy finds her half an hour later in the underbelly of the mansion's western wing, most likely tipped of her whereabouts by Fuery who’d seen her in passing as she’d torn through the crowds, instructing him to find her if there was something serious that needed her direct attention. Riza brings herself to turn and look at him, immaculate in his dress uniform and slicked-back hair. The flush in his cheeks alludes to the drinks and charm he’s been basking in all night, but the look in his eyes registers only as concern. Riza suddenly feels like a small animal, cornered and dissected under the weight of his gaze.

He has the sense to close the double doors behind him, tentatively stepping closer. It is clear that Riza is not fine by any margin, although the most of the heaving and hammering of her body already settled down, a considerable amount still remained battering her from the inside. She recounts the exchange to him from moments earlier, arms tightly crossed at her front. Roy shuts up for most of it, though when she ends her tirade he looks to have an obvious query on the tip of his tongue. Why are you so upset? She knows he wants to ask, and she finds herself asking that too. 

_He called me his granddaughter,_ she spits, answering the both of them. 

Roy’s brow creases, registering the statement alongside her tone. He is well aware that Riza was Grumman’s only grandchild (and likely, his only living biological family member, his wife and child having passed on decades ago)—but the fact is not exactly public knowledge, largely due to Riza's personal reservations. She had always been adamant on the information being strictly confidential, knowing what it could imply about her rank, especially in her early years in the military. Even now that she has embarked on a steady climb towards the top, Colonel Hawkeye made it very clear that she is to be known on the basis of merit, and merit alone. 

Perhaps he’d been mistaken. Riza wonders if somewhere along the lines, within the past four years, she’d given in to the illusion that she would allow him into her life as more than a superior officer. If she had softened in the filial sense, bowing under the weight of the years gone by. She thinks back to the dinner invitations—which had started as state dinners, then more intimate gatherings with the guest list dwindling down to suffocating, smaller crowds of fifty, thirty, twenty—and special assignments and tasks that had been extended her way. Her stomach turns. 

Riza realizes she’s pacing when she finds that his gaze is following her.

_He didn’t introduce me as Colonel Hawkeye. Not even by my name._

_I’m sure he didn’t mean to offend_ —

Roy knows he’s severely misstepped, his tongue always having been faster than his brain.

Before he can amend, Riza erupts: 

_He can’t just decide when it’s convenient for him to be my family!_

Far from an outburst (for there was far too much hurt enveloped in that one sentence, more exasperated than truly, veritably angry), though still uncharacteristic of Riza Hawkeye to raise her voice while overcome with such emotion. Roy looks stunned, and the fire in Riza’s eyes dies down to a spark within minutes of ignition. 

She remembers the porcelain dolls, dresses, and money (which her father had assumed control of, taking a larger sum of it for himself and a measly quarter for his daughter) that arrived as parcels delivered to their door, and waiting on bated breath for a brief letter with the Grumman letterhead to tell her to do well with school and be good to her father. Grumman had never set foot in the manor, allegedly at the request of his daughter who’d estranged herself from her family in favour of eloping with a man who grew to love alchemy more than his own wife and child. He did not even show up to the funeral, his presence only discernable from the lump sum wired to the Hawkeyes that took care of the funeral costs. Of course, she doesn’t tell Roy these details: there is no point in trying to curry empathy for a forgotten little girl, one that he already knew too, too much about. Riza had already buried her parents, sold the manor, cut her hair (twice), had her father’s work destroyed: there was, in essence, nothing else she had power over that tied her to that sad, sorry life. She is no longer that girl, for she had already built a life of her own—and Grumman's verbal, public claim threatened to upend her from the balance she had so intricately built. 

Roy sits himself on the arm of a chaise without a sound, and Riza turns her back to him again. All night he’d been the life of the party, blossoming under the radiance and splendour, sowing the seeds of his popularity among the dignitaries that would one day be his own allies or enemies. Incredibly, idiotically unaware of what his mentor had unwittingly said, the fuse Grumman had lit, and minefield that had been set off in Riza.

 _What can I do?_ Roy asks, after several long minutes. 

Riza lets out a breath, disbelieving. _What?_ Her voice is hauntingly small, a searing whisper that almost gets swallowed by the silence between them. She’d imagined that he’d quietly left, opting to check on her at a different time when she was much less volatile. They only ever stood witness to each other’s episodic aftermaths, with the exception of a handful of instances involving the burning of a back and the proverbial end of the world some years ago. Moments of weakness regarding life or death, they held each other through for they had no other choice—but when it came to their personal demons, there was a quiet understanding in play to step away until blatantly, outwardly called for. Even then, there was no such guarantee that the other would concede. 

Roy knows his options: he could stay, or he could very well leave—and he knows that she would harbour no ill will against him for doing so. Riza is a kindred soul, so alike yet starkly unalike to his own; he knows that a large, aching part of her is willing for him to turn around, leave, return to the party and forget about anything that has to do with her being in such a state. 

But far too many people leave—or, in many cases, never come around at all, and only try to be there when it is already far too late.

The point, Roy sees, is that he is here now: flesh and bone, though useless in the eye of her hurricane, but nevertheless present. 

_I said,_ he breathes, trying to rise above the scalding quiet that consumed the room. _What can I do? What should I do?_

She says nothing, sighing heavily. He watches as her shoulders rise and fall to the beat of her hitching breaths, sees how badly she is trying to keep herself together and prevent the inevitability of falling apart. Try as one may, there is nothing wholly dignified about despair, or anguish, or any of its other manifestations—especially when it has become a rotting, hidden wound that has turned painfully septic. They both know this firsthand, having met and danced with suffering throughout their lives both together and apart. 

Roy steps further into no man’s land, his dress shoes digging into the carpet that likely costs more than the car he drives—it quiets his footfalls, and Riza jolts when he reaches her and puts a hand on her arm. She turns to face him after one, two, three deep breaths, looking like the very embodiment of steadfast composure breaking and repairing and breaking again. Yet, by some stroke of miracle, the tears threatening to spill at the corners of her eyes have not yet fallen, and the steely resolve embedded in her features remains. 

He remembers the days he spent without sight, how proud he’d been, how he tried his damndest to refuse the help she or anyone tried to provide, but so desperately needed. How he’d insisted on staying in the hospital for longer despite no longer needing medical care, his pride allowing for him to be cared for by the nurses but shrinking under the thought of being a burden to Riza. How he’d eventually caved, how she’d stood by him as an immovable edifice that brought him home and helped him gain independence. She did not understand his particular loss of sight; but Riza was there, flesh and bone, helpless yet having made herself helpful. 

Roy pulls her to his chest then, her cheek meeting the cool face of a medal there. For a moment, Riza is frozen except for her slight trembling, ashamed to be so frayed over such a nonsensical pain she thought she had successfully buried. It’s when Roy rests his chin on the top of her head that she seems to unfreeze, her arms coming to wrap around his middle with a shuddering breath. She loses herself to this comfort for a selfish moment, holding onto the one constant in her damned life all these years—the charmingest man, her oldest friend, so flawed yet so determined to rise above, even if it kills him. 

He holds her with the same reverence. 

She regains her composure in full sometime after he starts stroking her hair—back straight, eyes carefully wiped, and lipstick retouched to keep her from looking suspect on her way out. Riza regretfully pulls away from his chest, arms hanging in the air in front of her for the briefest of seconds before bringing them down to her sides. _I’ll be going home now._

 _Do you want me to drive you?_ He asks so genuinely that Riza has to resist the roll of her eyes. Instead, she fixes him with a look that says: it will not look good if we leave together like this, and your night hasn’t finished yet. 

_I’ll be fine, Roy,_ she tells him aloud, and he nods resolutely. 

Riza retires for the evening through one of the side exits of the mansion and within a fifteen minute drive, she finally settles into her own home. Hayate greets her at the door and curls into her side while she cries herself through the last of the rattling in her chest, willing the nauseating feeling of abandonment to leave her body through the exhausted sobs. She manages to rid herself of most of it, but finds herself unable to sleep. The backs of her eyelids replay the (regrettably, slowly, painfully) fading memories of her mother, with blonde hair and tall nose like hers and warm embrace and kind voice and fascinating stories—too kind, too loving, too sick, too soon. Neither will her mind allow her forget the creeping, rotting loneliness that permeated her childhood from the day her mother died, despite having a living father and the Grumman side of her supposed family. 

She knows she is stronger for having survived most of it alone. Though surrounded, watched, befriended, the worst of the demons—in the form of a dead mother, of a father spiralling down where she could not follow, of red ink painfully etched into her back, of being a self-sufficient orphan—were braved by her alone. 

_Please Papa, no more,_ she remembers begging her father, who had been halfway through inscribing the tattoo on her back. He had stopped, put down the needle, and Riza thought he had finally finished. She then realized that he had only paused to retrieve more ink, because the searing pain came back again, along with his words: _Without this, you’ll be nothing, Riza. Do you understand? No one will want anything to do with you. You are nothing. You have no formal education, no job, and soon I will no longer be alive to take care of you. This is all you have left._

How wrong he was. How she wishes she could slap him in the face with her life of the present—though far from ideal, though nothing to be incredibly amazed by, Riza had built a life for herself. She worked, signed her own lease, owned property, made friends, learned how to dance, and took care of herself.

She had survived, but she also learned how to live. 

Riza Hawkeye wants for nothing, not even the simple, supposedly essential element of a family. She had already been allotted the poor excuse of one in her lifetime and it was more than enough to extinguish her interest altogether. She tells herself that she is content with her friends, with Roy and Becca and the rest of the team, and the letters she writes to Edward and Winry and Alphonse, sent to wherever their travels and dreams have led them to. Had she been a better woman, perhaps she could call this handful of people the family of her choosing—but all of them had families of their own or other similar loved ones who take precedence above all.

Still, closer to one in the morning, she hears an engine hum and shut off outside her window, and shortly after, a knock on the door. _It’s me,_ Roy says, somewhat breathless. He must have rushed parking his car and running up the few flights of stairs to her apartment. She tries to stifle the endearment that comes from this realization, from the sense of urgency he has towards her. 

Riza hesitates, despite having confirmed through the voice and the sight of him through the eyehole. She needs only a few simple things; the necessities of food, drink, shelter, human interaction, fulfillment through a career. She wants for even less, and rarely, if ever, does Riza Hawkeye ask for anything if she can help it. Especially from Roy _,_ a man she has already exhausted so much of in all the years that she’s known him, having placed enough strain on his heart and mind for this life and the next. 

She opens the door anyway. 

* * *

The campaign trail leads them to Resembool. 

Roy tenaciously made a point to visit the smaller, farther out towns and cities, making dedicated stops en route to the more popular campaign grounds that his opponents were already hard at work on dividing and conquering. While they heard the same demands from the city-dwelling and the affluent, Roy Mustang sought the opinions of the miners, farmers, and factory workers on the fringes of the nation. After countless handshakes and a rousing speech in the town square, the day draws to a much anticipated close by sundown. Still, only the motorcade and other party members drive up to the local inn, while Roy and Riza take his personal car up a long road to a house with a sign that reads: Rockbell Automail.

Upon arrival, the state of controlled chaos proves to be oddly comforting. Edward is in the front yard shepherding a dozen sheep, flanked by his two children that chase each other with scuffed knees to the tune of joyful laughter. Winry greets them at the door with her welding goggles and jumpsuit still on. 

_Come in, come in!_ Winry weaves them through the mudroom and entryway, expertly sidestepping several pairs of shoes and a wooden train set on the floor that Roy would have tripped over had he not been following so closely behind. _Sorry about the mess, we held school in the house today. James told his class all about my workshop, so I had about a dozen children in here up until an hour ago. Also_ — _if Sara talks your ears off about trains and railroads, it’s because she’s always hearing about them on the radio. She wants to be a conductor when she grows up!_

They fall into the chaos quite easily, with Riza offering to help Edward prepare dinner and the children swarming Roy with a barrage of questions and jubilations about personal triumphs—he ends up appraising a drawing of an automail arm proudly designed by James, and from Sara, he learns the incredibly specific fact that is the average passenger train capacity on the Western corridor. 

Closer to eight in the evening, Winry excuses herself from the table to settle the kids into bed ( _I_ _tuck them in because Ed did the dishes, but it’s his turn tomorrow!,_ she’d said with a wink before turning her heel and racing the children up the stairs), with the promise to be back as soon as the bedtime stories and lullabies had been exhausted for the night. 

It is laughs and mostly friendly bickering from there, until a certain, inevitable wall was hit. Edward had been needling them about their plans after Roy gets sworn in to office, farther than Ishval's restoration and striking a balance for Amestris. The worst of it came when Riza had said that they still planned to hold themselves accountable for their war crimes in Ishval and accept whatever punishment that the eventual court martial would rule. Somewhere around her explanation of the timeline they had meticulously planned, Edward falls uncharacteristically silent: no irritated sighs, no counters, just his gaze burning into the wood of the dining table. 

_You do not get to look at me like that,_ Edward starts when he finally looks up, his hands firmly curled into fists. 

_Like what?_ Roy challenges back. He is met with a scoff from across the table. 

_Like I’m still a child. Because I’m not—I’m married and I have two children already._ _And I know that you’re always going to see me as a kid because you can’t get over yourselves. But believe me when I say I’ve fucking grown—and in a lot of ways, I’ve grown more than you._

The room stills. 

There is an unspoken, resounding thought that tells them all: you better be glad Winry isn’t here. 

Winry, the woman who couldn’t bring herself to put a bullet through Scar, not only because of her morality but because she couldn’t stand for his death despite his transgressions, for it would have been the easy way out. Edward speaks again, this time quieter now, almost as if he can feel that his wife would grow suspicious of his steadily raised voice and come back downstairs in the middle of a bedtime story to investigate:

_Actually, I’m a father of three now. We have another one on the way. Might as well make you godparents because godparents aren’t allowed to just fucking die._

The room stills again, but after a few beats it’s Riza who puts a dent in the quiet:

 _Edward, are you serious?_ Her voice is careful, with a fleeting tremor of emotion so controlled that it could have just as easily been missed. She doesn’t know exactly what she’s asking about—is it the news that the Rockbell-Elrics are expecting again or is it the fact that Edward had just guilted them indefinitely by appointing them as godparents? Riza thinks it’s both, with only slightly more disbelief towards the latter; after all, the previous candidates had been the Rockbell-Elrics' family and close friends, the ones who they could trust to be there for their children at the drop of a hat, without the constraints of prioritizing work or unearthing sore spots like eventual court martial. When she turns to her left, Roy seems to be equally as stunned.

Edward’s brows are still stubbornly furrowed and he has his arms crossed over his chest, but the workings of a proud smile threatens to upturn his lips: _Yeah. The baby's supposed to be born sometime around Win's birthday, which she's been—_

 _That’s not fair,_ Roy interjects. The frown on Edward’s face returns and deepens.

 _Well, it’s not fair that you just get to die when it’s most convenient for you,_ Edward fires back bluntly.

Riza pinches the bridge of her nose, trying to find reason. She thinks of the night she’d spent polishing her firearms on her own dining room table, explaining the horrors of Ishval to a seventeen year old Edward doused in revulsion and innocence, what seems like a lifetime ago. _It’ll be a long time until we go to trial,_ is the best she can do, and already she wants to withdraw her words and say them better. _First, we’re going to make sure that everything is in order, that—_

It clearly isn’t enough to placate Ed, who rises from his chair bolt upright and bewildered: 

_Oh, so you’re going to fix the country and then what? How do you know it’s going to stay that way? Sure, you’ll feel accomplished, but you’re just going to leave everybody else in the dirt when it all goes to shit again._

Ed plants his palms flat on the table, studying their faces with the same burning amber eyes he’d cut them with in his youth. _And don’t even try to tell me that it won’t go to shit because the people running against you are going to destroy the country when you’re gone. But oh, it wouldn’t matter, right? Because you’ll be dead, and it won’t be your fucking problem anymore._

Edward stops his rant to catch his breath and neither Roy nor Riza have made a move to speak over him. When he speaks again, his voice is small: _How the hell is that fair?_

This spurs Roy to reason: _We_ _will make sure that everything is taken care of. You have my word._

Edward looks incredulous, as though Roy had just spoken in a foreign language that he could not understand. _Yeah, like hell you do._

The conversation is cut short when Winry reappears at the bottom of the stairwell. She makes her way to the dining table, reading the room but smiling through the tension, especially when she puts a hand on Edward’s arm and he doesn’t relax under her touch. Curt goodbyes are exchanged shortly after and the general and colonel drive up to the inn for the evening in complete silence. The already long road between the Rockbell-Elric home and the town square feels even longer in the wake of what is mulling around in their heads, but neither of them make a move to begin unravelling it all. They part ways for a few hours into rooms across from each other, spending the moments sombrely getting ready for bed, very much aware that it is to be another sleepless night. 

When they reconvene in the sitting room of Roy’s suite, Riza enters bearing packets of instant coffee and the paper-wrapped, string-tied slices of pie that Winry insisted they take with them on their way out. They move through the room in silence, all tired sighs and heavy limbs. Before long, they gravitate towards the lumpy couch facing the window. Riza sits down first, tucking her feet under her, and Roy follows to settle by her side after placing their mugs on the coffee table in front of them. In the distance, they can see the houses, spread so far apart; the town hall, the schoolhouse, the barns and farmlands scattered all around, draped in starlight like a quaint, storybook painting. 

_He made some points, we’ll have to give him that,_ Riza says while she finger-combs through her hair, finally let down for the evening. She picks the pins from her hair one by one, placing them onto her lap and pocketing them in her lounge pants. 

Roy doesn’t say anything, and instead takes several sips of the watered-down black coffee in his cup. 

_It’s selfish,_ he finally says, when they’ve both drained their cups, the statement so solid it seems as though he’d been mulling over it the whole while. _What the hell is going to happen if we leave the country to people who won't carry on what we worked for? It’s selfish that I don’t want that to happen—that I want to stick around and do everything I can. It’s selfish, right?_

Riza, the perpetual voice of reason, finds that words escape her.

It was always easier climbing up and fighting tooth and nail when they were looking to the definite, planned ending. It was easier to justify, to reason out, and to sleep at night when each and every wrongdoing was tacked with the notion that they would pay for it all in the end. Now, considering a different outcome—or perhaps none at all, not quite yet, they find themselves in the dark.

Although, in the lamplight, Roy is illuminated: tired eyes, fatigued shoulders, stubbornly set jaw. Riza makes a home in the crook between his neck and shoulder. She studies his face and finds that he has already come to a decision, written in the crease of his brow and the press of his lips. She exhales with a tremor in her breath when she realizes that they both are in silent agreement. Roy Mustang has decided to live, a decision he’s been picking at since he came home as the venerated hero of Ishval _,_ but he will carry it like a cross for the rest of his days. 

Riza Hawkeye, sworn to follow him to hell and back and everywhere in between, follows through and stays with him in the land of the living. 

_Do you think he was being serious?_ Riza asks after a few moments, steering them away from the guilt they would indefinitely simmer in, shifting closer to him on the sofa that creaks a little under their combined weight. She is close enough to be shoulder to shoulder with him, and suddenly it takes a preposterous amount of energy to crane her neck up to see his face.

Roy breathes out as if he’d been holding in his breath all this time. _He’s making us responsible for his kids like being godparents is some kind of hostage tactic,_ is what he says when he finally melts against her, the rigidity in his muscles finally giving way, resting his cheek on the crown of her head. Riza laughs, a small little sound that is more breath than anything else, and they fall back into silence once more. 

_I’ve been a godparent before,_ Roy muses quietly when Riza is halfway to sleep against him. His voice, throaty and quiet, draws her back to waking. 

_You still are,_ she tells him.

Roy hums. His free hand traces an indent on her wrist, the ghost of a scar that had puckered and healed so long ago. 

Silence looms over again, both of them breathing at the same pace. He pretends not to notice Riza fighting the fluttering of her eyelids, and she welcomes the way he threads his fingers through hers. Warm, calloused, each of their hands a half to a whole. 

They are thinking of the same thing, of the same family and little girl—except that Elicia Hughes is far from little now, boasting a vivacious life of her own and studying at a prestigious boarding school in the Northeastern region, making Gracia Hughes the proudest mother of a young, bright scholar. Still, Elicia receives a periwinkle blue wrapped package, every birthday and holiday and exam result release without fail. They are dropped off either in person when she is home or more commonly, sent through a courier straight to her dormitory's mail room, each one signed neatly and endearingly: _With Love, Uncle Roy._

He’s good at that stuff: gift giving, the briefest of birthday party attendances, letters and packages in the mail. Roy had even insisted on helping pay for Elicia’s education, from her current private schooling to her upcoming university tuition, after the funds from Maes’ pension ran dry all too soon. Elicia Hughes roots him to this earth, having become his responsibility in the simplest, most undeniable way. Now that she was spreading her wings and wanting for nothing—for Roy had made sure that he had given her everything humanly possible—he’d become more of a satellite, fulfilling his duty from a comfortable distance. 

The Rockbell-Elric children, wide-eyed and curious and intelligent as they are, deserve to grow up in a world that left them wanting for nothing and everything at once. He supposes it would be no different, then, enacting the role of a godparent from the distance between Central and Resembool. 

_What do you think Sara will want for her birthday?_ Riza asks.

Roy stretches his arms above his head, careful not to upset her comfort. _We’ll take her on the inaugural ride when the new line is built. Private car at the very front, on the scenic route through the valleys._

Riza laughs, tracing the faintly raised trail of a long faded sigil on the back of his hand. _You want your first major project as Fuhrer to be christened by a small army of children from Resembool?_

Roy would have kissed the laugh that rumbles out of his chest onto crown of her head if he’d let his adoration get the best of him. He always found himself entranced by the way she makes his chest tighten with a feeling uniquely attributed to her, born from the smallest of gestures and quips. _Why the hell not?_  
  


* * *

Fuhrer President Roy Mustang is elected into office on a rainy autumn day. 

For a moment after it is officially announced, everything blurs—and when the room creeps into focus again, Roy sees her first. He wants to hold her, lift her up, and spin her around like an idiot. 

Instead, they exchange a knowing glance, eyes shining. 

A few beats pass, then they embrace: celebration is happening all around, so they would not be blamed for celebrating in their own way. It is a quick, fleeting squeeze; she barely has time to wrap her arms around him as he crushes her against him, elation in every breath and heartbeat. 

_Congratulations,_ she says into the lapel of his jacket.

 _Thank you,_ he breathes. _So much._

Oh, they have only just begun. 

* * *

Xing, with all of its lustre and might, dwarfs Amestris significantly. 

Not only in terms of size—at least four Amestrises could fit into Xing and still have room to spare—but also in just about every other way to be imagined. The sights, sounds, tastes, and everyone from the merchants and their laughing, rambunctious youth lining the streets, to the young emperor at the helm of it all.

The grandeur is all consuming and is something that Roy privately thinks he’d like to bottle up and keep close to him for the rest of his days. Two years ago, he had announced the plans for an Amestris-Xing railroad, which proved to be a massive undertaking considering the vast expanse of the desert that stretched between the two countries. Of course, he stood his ground, and in the past week, the project had been hailed complete. In celebration, Roy and a select delegation were invited to the imperial capital of Xing to hail the birth of a new era in trade, commerce, and partnership. 

He finds himself in a too-large, too-grand room in the imperial palace. Somewhere between fiddling with his collar and the unclasping and re-clasping of the fasteners on his shirt, Riza steps into the room. Roy only realizes this because he hears the sliding of wood and the ever so slight crinkle of paper panelling; she’s wearing an almost Amestrian blue traditional dress, high necked and elaborately beaded with a design of a crane wrapping around her side. Roy misses the hemline and the way the dress hugs at her figure entirely, focusing instead on her hair, twisted up in its usual way but instead of her signature bangs, a single grey-streaked lock hangs in their place. Riza smiles softly in greeting, seeming to miss the awestruck look on his face. 

The lines that crinkle around her eyes and the corners of her mouth pull at something soft between Roy’s ribs. 

_Your cue cards, Roy,_ she says after what feels like a million years in his mind. It reminds him that he is to give a well-scripted, thrice-edited (first by himself, then sieved through Riza and Alphonse in part, and finally through his Xingese tutor) speech, to a mass of Xingese and Amestrian dignitaries. Had his audience only been Amestrians, Roy thinks that he wouldn’t be as overwhelmed; he was used to addressing his people in what were usually impassioned, unscripted speeches of his own conception. 

Now, not only is he tackling a foreign audience—he is also going to attempt to speak their language. 

_It’s your language, too,_ his aunt had told him a few nights ago, when he came to bid her farewell before his trip. It was both ritual and tradition to seek out his aunt Chris' counsel before any of his major milestones; Roy had visited her before he took the state alchemist exam, before his deployment to Ishval, and even right before he threw the state headlong into a coup. There was no sense in breaking tradition, he had reasoned out. That night, Roy found that he needed more than just the usual assurance of good faith; his thoughts had been preoccupied with all things Xing, from the merciless catalogue of etiquette rules to historical events for conversation, but Roy found that he wanted to anchor himself to more than just the textbook, outsider details. 

And so, for about the millionth time in his life—Roy had asked about his mother. Chris Mustang was no stranger to this query, for she had spent the better part of the years raising Roy telling and re-telling progressively more detailed versions of his origins, revealing more about his parentage, his background, and all the nebulous details in between.

She’d always have stories about Roy’s father, who was her brother, but had significantly less to say about his mother due to the brevity of their acquaintance. His aunt filled in easy things, like her looks—which she’d always compare to his, citing a round face and thin brow and a pair of brown-black eyes—and then she’d go on to tell him about how his parents met and fell in love, an unexpected whirlwind that she’d initially disapproved of given how young they were. How they had met at university, his mother being the only Xingese woman in most of her lectures. How Chris Mustang had stood as the single witness at his parents’ wedding, to which his mother had worn a dress from home and his father had borrowed a friend’s suit, in an East City courthouse just months before Roy was born. 

The other blanks, Roy had to fill for himself, especially where Xingese culture and language were concerned. His mother only lived long enough to sing him Xingese lullabies (whose words have long since slipped from his memory, if they had ever been etched there in the first place), but had never gotten the chance to teach him the language or anything else pertinent to his cultural identity before her untimely death. He never knew her, and most of the time Roy came to see it as a blessing: there was no logical reason to miss someone that he never knew for himself. 

Chris Mustang tried her best to offer enrichment in the form of proposing language learning lessons and cooking dishes inspired by Xing. But Roy distinctly remembers entering boyhood stubbornly wanting to distance himself from every Xingese part of his person, too young to understand the maelstrom of buried feelings brewing inside him, especially when he’d get teased for his slanted eyes and warm toned skin and been expected to know the language and the customs despite the fact that there was nothing Xingese about him other than the way he looked. 

Above all, he remembers endlessly insisting that he was Amestrian, born and raised and proud, to every mean-spirited classmate who called him a _chink;_ to the haughty superiors in cadet school who’d lumped together anyone who was not visibly, fully Amestrian and made it very, painfully known; and to every supposedly well-meaning person who would approach him in the street, smile, and try to greet him in Xingese. 

Standing in the richness and splendour that is Xing, wearing their clothes, having learned a clinical, too-polished amount of their mainland language, Roy finds himself regretting all those years he’d wasted in stubbornness and denial. 

_Roy?_ It’s Riza’s voice that draws him out of his thoughts, as per usual. She’s still extending the humble stack of cards towards him, patient yet prodding. 

_Oh, right._ He takes them from her in as quick and fluid of a swipe as he can, if only to hide the tremor in his fingers from her. 

He succeeds, but she picks up on it anyway.

 _Nervous?_ There is no teasing, no dryness, no blame. Riza shows him genuine concern, closely followed by the underlying readiness to dissuade his concerns should he want to confide in her.

The memory that arises is one from several weeks ago, when they were fitted for the traditional clothing by a specialized shop in Central that Riza had managed to track down. Roy had something akin to a crisis and frustratedly stormed out of the seamstress’ shop while she painstakingly took down his measurements and presented fabric samples, saying something or another about how it was taking too long and he had more important work to do. Riza had to talk him down from opting to wear a tuxedo instead, and she narrowly succeeded, but gave him the benefit of the doubt when he’d given her a vague answer as to why he was causing such a commotion over clothing. 

In truth, he could not find it in him to tell her how he felt like he had no right to wear the traditional clothes, and how, in the fine silk and beading, Roy felt like an imposter at best. 

Now, he tries to find the words to either quietly affirm or pretentiously deny her inquiry, but again finds that his words run dry.

Roy goes with the first thing that comes to mind instead.

 _You look great,_ he tells her in Xingese, knowing that she would understand as she had been learning it alongside him, absently dog-earing the cue cards in his hands. Roy steels himself from shuffling and fidgeting with them in excess, if only for the fact that Riza had thoughtfully arranged them for his benefit, fully knowing that if it had been up to him, he would have barrelled through the speech without cards. Besides, he’d never want to ruin her good work. 

She looks stunned for a few beats, registering the compliment before letting a smile tug at the corners of her lips. It reaches her eyes, slightly exaggerating the lines around there. Roy wonders if it would be rude to comment on them: not negatively, of course, but he thinks they deserve some form of recognition. They weren’t getting any younger, yes—but the lines stood as a testament that they’ve managed to live long enough to show signs of age. 

_So do you_ , Riza says, replying in Xingese too. _I_ _told you that it would look good._

It prompts a chuckle to rumble from Roy’s chest, easing him considerably. There’s still a rattling in his fingertips, though, reverberating from the muscle working overtime in his chest. He wonders if the look in his eye plays on Riza’s worry. 

_You’ll do fine,_ Riza says as she closes the space between them. Her deft hands move to smooth the non-existent wrinkles on the shoulders of his shirt, delivering comfort through her touch. _You’re fine._

He nods, sighing, then begins to rehearse his words. Roy tries his best not to look at the cards but inevitably feels his resolve crumble when he finds himself second guessing which word or inflection to use. 

Riza leaves the room five minutes before he gets ushered to a dimly lit and curtained area, awaiting his formal introduction to the seated masses. Emperor Ling Yao welcomes his subjects, the guests of honour, and soon enough, Fuhrer President Mustang, speaking in both Xingese and Amestrian with ease. 

Hers is the first face that Roy tries to find in the crowd, having to strain his eyes because of the lights and the sheer number of people filed into the hall. He locks eyes with Alphonse instead, who gives him a reassuring smile from where he sits pristinely beside Princess Chang at her table. Something in his stomach flips at the realization that Al’s Xingese was likely better than his, with a more naturalized flow and a quicker ability to match wits with the native speakers. Roy files that thought away and walks to the podium with his best stride.

 _Thank you, your Imperial Majesty,_ he starts, the split-second appearance of a nervous lilt in his voice hidden by the remnants of courteous applause and the sounds of the crowd settling in. 

Roy continues the rest of his speech, talking about the blessings of trade and partnership brought about the railway. He stumbles on a few hard vowels here and there, trusting that his confident intonation saved him from becoming accidentally offensive or a laughing stock. Ultimately, he finishes strong, met with a smattering of applause upon his conclusion and a wave of internal relief. 

He finally finds Riza near the front of the room, a sight he’d missed from looking out too far into the crowd. Her hands are some of the last ones together as the applause dies down. 

* * *

_Esther,_ Riza says. 

Roy blinks up from his glass. Vanessa had been kind enough to let them overstay their welcome long after closing, just the two of them and the din of a record in the private lounge of Madame Valentine's bar. 

It’s Riza’s turn to look down into the last two sips of her drink. _My mother’s name was Esther. That’s why my initials were T.E., for Thereza Esther. I removed both names and kept only Riza. Grumman helped me legally change it. He even offered to let me use his last name, after he found out about my father._

The quiet returns, rising and settling like a tide. Roy considers the idea of the name Riza Grumman—he almost gets brave enough to test it out on his tongue aloud, then decides instead to say it in his head. It sounds unfamiliar at best, but he knows that if he had always known her by that name, he would sing praises of it in the same way he does with the name Riza Hawkeye—purely because she’d have made it her own, regardless of who had given it to her. 

Roy runs his thumb along the rim of his glass. They have long since passed placation, so he opts to lay a part of himself down in return—in step with the fine, melancholy dance they've been practicing for decades on end, shedding layers in front of the other in the hopes of lightening the load. 

_I had a Xingese name,_ he offers. 

Riza hums, an inquiring sound: to be taken as a simple acknowledgement or a prompt to continue, whichever one Roy wishes to rise to. The table shakes a little from the bouncing of his leg underneath, and Riza knows that he is braving himself to say something vulnerable. Her knee knocks into his, a silent gesture to go on. 

_Kazuki,_ he tells her. _My mother wanted to give me the name Kazuki, but they decided to give me an Amestrian name instead because they didn’t want me to be any more different from the other children. I don’t remember being called anything but Roy._

The quiet pays a visit again. Riza takes this time to finish her drink, watching as Roy mirrors her, letting the burn settle in her stomach before speaking again. 

_My mother used to only call me Thereza. It was the name of the heroine from her favourite Aerugian novel,_ she tries for a smile, but it falters almost immediately. Roy takes the inflection in her tone as the equivalent of it that she could muster, and offers a smile of his own, reaching across the table to take her hand. 

Family is a foreign, unspoken word, especially now that Grumman has long since been buried in the military cemetery and Chris Mustang’s days are numbered, a lifetime of indulgence finally catching up to her aging self. 

For Riza, family had been herself, a dead mother, a dead father, and a dead grandfather, among estranged others she had never bothered pursuing. 

To Roy, family had always first been his aunt and sisters, then was next defined as the parents he had never known. 

In the early morning, they drive up to the cemetery. They wear civilian clothes, browns and greys and blacks without a hint of blue in sight, in the company of each other and the morning groundskeeper several yards away. 

Roy puts flowers at his parents’ graves and burns the incense all proper using the lighter in his pocket. She’d helped him pick out the flowers the day before, one for each of the Mustangs, both bouquets having been tenderly placed in a vase of water overnight to keep them fresh until morning. He crouches down, closing his eyes briefly, before opening them and looking above the headstone where the sky was slowly starting to come alight over the horizon. 

Riza stands at a respectful distance, not so close yet not too far. She notes the simplicity of the joint headstone, inscribed with the Mustangs’ names (Saki and Emil Mustang, both only twenty two at their untimely passing) and dates of birth and death—how beautiful that Roy’s parents were buried side by side, lovers to the end through sickness and death. The graves from her own memory pale grimly in comparison: Esther Hawkeye (the name Grumman purposefully omitted from her headstone, according to her wishes), buried in her sleepy, backwater town, a site Riza had not visited since leaving to enlist and never turning back. Contrarily, Berthold rots a mile away in the stretch of property just outside of the manor grounds. 

In the quiet of his own mind, Roy says a benediction of his own: _Mom, dad, this is Riza._ He thinks up the words the same way he does when he visits Maes (a tradition he’d started when a young Elicia Hughes had asked for his help in processing the death of her father, when she had grown old enough to truly understand), internally said then willed out in steady concentration. Roy is not a pious man in the slightest, but there is some comfort in the notion that the good ones who had been lost were somewhere safe and sound, miraculously able to hear invocations from the land of the living. 

The sun rises slowly and soon, so does he, standing up and stepping back so that he is side by side with Riza again. He never knew his mother and father, having been a little over a year old when they were interred; how strange it was to miss people he’d never met, to shed tears over the ones he’d never, truly known, but had known and loved him in the year and a half he was their son. 

And if their hands come together and their fingers thread into each other, there are no witnesses—the groundskeeper is far too preoccupied with taking care of the greenery, and Roy has a hat obscuring his face and Riza with a silk scarf draped over her hair. From afar, they look like any other nameless, faceless pair, solemnly visiting two plots of earth crowned with a headstone belonging to just another nameless, faceless couple long since gone by. 

Though morbid, Roy thinks of a world in which there was a possibility, when the inevitable arrives and death comes to take them at last, of the futile fantasy that he’d be buried beside Riza in such a way. Not separated by yards and yards of respectable distance in the military cemetery, but like this, in a quiet patch of grass towards the back of the city cemetery’s grounds far from the main streets, near a sloping tree providing a soothing blanket of shade. Where they would only be Riza Hawkeye and Roy Mustang—no rank, no title, no considerable distance in between: just their bodies and the earth and wood and stone. 

He thinks of himself as ridiculous, grim, and downright awful for thinking such a thought, and for having dragged her to the graves of his parents altogether, knowing that Riza’s own heart still sometimes ached from the holes her own parents had left.

But the weight of her hand in his and the sweep of her thumb over the skin on the back of his hand (along with her encouragement from years ago to begin visiting his mother and father if that was something he felt that he must do) allows him to believe, even if just for a moment, that she wishes for something like that too. 

A simpler life, a simpler world: a seemingly ungrateful desire after all they’ve survived and accomplished, in an era that has only just begun. 

They walk back to the car hand in hand, the union concealed by the illusion of standing so close together, wordless as they walk along the designated, paved path so as not to disturb the other graves. They pass by an old man struggling to kneel and place a bouquet on what they soon learn is his late wife’s grave, and Riza quickly offers to do so for him and wishes him well. She wonders if, some day, there would be someone leaving flowers at her own grave with that kind of resolute commitment—to have been so freely loved in such a way that defied creaking joints and the terrible onslaught of time going by. 

When they reach the car, Riza slides into the driver’s seat and Roy rides shotgun—protocol dictates that he ought to be accompanied by a driver and a bodyguard each time he steps into a vehicle, so they bend the rules and Riza assumes the role of both. 

The windows, tinted and bulletproof, obscure them from the slowly waking world that they drive through, nameless and faceless if only for a handful of precious minutes.

**Author's Note:**

> first, i want to apologize for how long this update took; i knew that i wanted to end this series with the third part, so between trying to decide which drabbles would make the final cut and real life, this fic took me quite a while. i also want to note that i left out some important elaborations, specifically with roy’s blindness and how his sight was restored. this was intentional, as i hope to write a separate fic on that part of their lives, where they are living and healing together in limbo. 
> 
> it was also extremely tempting to end this story on a more romantic note (somewhere along the lines of signing papers in front of a judge, ha!), but i wanted to stick to my guns by keeping it bittersweet and open ended like the others. that, by reaching their goal, they are only just beginning, and decades down the line are still getting to know each other. i do plan to write more royai though, so here’s a tentative invitation to stay tuned!
> 
> finally, i want to say a big thank you to everyone who has enjoyed this series so far. the kudos notifications i got every so often reminded me to keep writing, and every time i would revisit the comments i felt so incredibly inspired. so, thank you for reading my blubbering feelings and long run on sentences!


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